My Non-Family Vacation

 

My Non-Family Vacation

For four days in June, I am transformed from the woman with Multiple Sclerosis, who would fail a field sobriety test, because of MS related balance issues. I become a goddess with magical powers; I wheel my cart to the Access tent at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. I whip my ID out and flip it on the table, so that the volunteer can insure I am indeed, who I say I am. I place my milk chocolaty wrist onto the flimsy wooden table, the sweaty volunteer chugs from her bottled water. Finally, she attaches the magical blue band around my wrist.

I am now more powerful than at least 60,000 of my fellow festival attendees; the only thing that rivals my blue wrist -band is an admission letter to Hogwarts. I now harness the power to bypass lines that contain thousands of other music lovers, all of them sweaty and excited, with the occasional intoxicated person. I am allowed to take secret paths that most people aren’t allowed to go on, they are unmarked, of course. One year, my husband and I got turned around, so I pulled my red three-wheeled cart to the left side of the path.That way I wouldn’t block the path.

My husband reached into the tie-dyed bag attached to the back of my seat, and handed me an ice cold water. In that moment, I was thankful for my husband’s neurotic need to clear the freezer of everything except for drinks. I open my mouth to thank him for freezing the drinks, but something moved at the very edge of my vision. I looked up, my mouth formed a large O, and my frozen bottled water dropped from my hand. Concern is evident on my husband’s face, I know he’s thinking of the previous year when I got dehydrated and passed out on a man who only had one leg. In a quiet, but confident voice I told him to turn around. My husband and I were, approximately 20 feet away from the great Blues Musician BB King, and the lead singer of Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder.

That day I was happy I had Multiple Sclerosis, instead of preventing me from doing something that I loved, it enabled me to have an experience that few will ever have.